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Most blast cabinets come with a siphon blaster, so no need for an air eraser, you'd quickly out grow it anyway. Bench cabinets are nice, but the one downfall they pretty much all have, is the sides of the bottom are not steep enough to get media to slide to the bottom where the siphon intake is located. They work well enough, but not as well as a self standing unit with steeper sides. And just a quick note on siphon blasters, do not bury the entire metal siphon under the media, the top of it should be up in open air. (took me awhile to figure that one out ) Personally I'd skip the HF unit. The problem with theirs and several others in the low price range is that it is put together with nuts and bolts and as a result has a lot of places for media to leak out. This can be fixed with sealant, but for just a bit more you can find a cabinet that is all one piece. Usually Rotomolded plastic. Nothertool has one for about $200. As for grit, that depends on the look you like. The higher/finer the grit, the more of a dusting effect the etch will have. The lower/course grit will give a courser surface. For glass I like something around 120 grit. They type of media also plays a factor, for glass Aluminum Oxide is pretty common. It's not too expensive, and lasts pretty long. Even with a blast cabinet you should still consider some sort of respirator or dust mask, no such thing as being too safe. Lastly, get as big of an air compressor as you can afford. Blasting uses quite a bit of air and a small compressor will be running constantly to keep the air supply going and as a result quickly burn itself out. I have a 10 gallon unit, it works well, but it does run a bit more often than I'd like. One thing that confused me in the beginning was looking at the require CFMs of a blaster vs the CFMs of a compressor. The two do not have to be matched up. Once the tank of the compressor is full, it will provide what ever the blaster needs, it'll only be restricted by the hoses and fittings. Where the CFM of the compressor comes into play is how long it will take to refill the tank. So if you compressor has a higher CFM, you can blast non stop. If your compressor has a lower CFM you will need to pause every now and then and give the compressor time to refill the tank. Also, the larger diameter hose you can get, the better. Larger diameters will allow higher CFM, should try to go 1/2" at the min.

I had a small powder coating business that I lost to a fire. Did a lot of sandblasting and everything they have said above is true. I also can't stress enough how important controlling the dust is! Silicosis is a very serious issue. - Most tractor supply type companies carry a handful of different grits and have good prices. - Always watch for moisture in your grit. If it gets damp it's useless and nearly impossible to dry out. - If you like to tinker, look into building a pressure pot. A siphon uses most of your air volume sucking up the grit. A pressure put pushes the grit to the gun with just a small amount of air, so the majority of your CFM can be used for blasting. They can be difficult to get dialed in right at first, but they are incredible once you're over the learning curve. - Really spend some time pretending to use a cabinet before you buy one. I found all the arm holes were too close together and five minutes using one would kill my back. So I built my own with multiple arm holes set to different widths. I could blast a whole motorcycle frame without ever opening the door. Some of them I tried wouldn't let you reach in far enough to manipulate the item you were blasting. - Any time you're dealing with fine dust (sandblast, drywall, finish sanding) a "Dust Deputy" from Oneida is worth it's weight in gold. It's a simple cyclonic separator that really does it's job. I added an exhaust port of pvc to my cabinet and ran it to the Dust Deputy and then to a shop vac. Before hand, the shop vac filter had to be cleaned every 15 minutes. Afterwards I could run 5 hours or more.

All I ask is that you please don't tell Slice and Dice that SCALP is better than SignBlazer or we will have world war three on here.......

Thank you ,I do my best ,, I spend many hours on the phone with people from here and in live view thru my computer using teamviewer12 which is free on the web, teaching anyone who needs help with scalps who already own it, want to see how it works ,and how to use Ai with scalps for what i know thanks to you .I have also spent many many hours helping in designing as well and never asked for a dime.... @cardudenc will vouch for that, I never trash talk any program.When i see someone struggling with a software cause maybe they dont know about scalps4pro since VM came out and scalps was pushed to the side, so i just offer a different alternative that can be purchased from craftedge and now go get it from uscutter if they choose to. I probably spend a min 5 -8 hours a night after working helping people from here privately and for free. And i know im not the only one who probably does this .

You're a good guy Dwayne and have and do help a lot of folks out. We NEED a SCALP guru around just like having someone capable of helping out with SignBlazer, Inkscape and so on.

Thanks @Wildgoose I've been struggling for a few years to find a market I enjoyed making stuff for and that isn't completely saturated with people. Now all I need to do is find a happy price point.

The SC is definitely a budget cutter but should run smoother than what you describe. I agree with Dakota on the file. You either have two of the car or possibly some open ground around it that is also an object (possibly with a white or transparent fill) that will cause a double cut. If you can manage a short video small enough to upload showing the cut being jerky maybe we can be of more specific help.

I'm not exactly sure who that cardude guy is, but ive heard he just recently learned how to power on a computer. so that 5-8 hrs a night @Primal Decals is usually with me trying to teach me how to jyst power on the computer. lol so back to the post here. I have an SC model cutter. I haven't timed how long it takes to cut a design in all the different speed settings. but there is a difference. when I 1st started I accidently had bumped the speed up to 500, it flew thru that design.ive never cut at that speed or higher again. I'm usually cutting at 300. I had 1 design having an issue with pulling up vinyl, I tried 200 and then 100. I noticed a difference in each speed. I'm using scalp4, I also have the basic VM that came with my cutter. I prob haven't cut as many designs with it as I have scalps. mainly just cut txt with it. because in the beginning that's all I knew how to do. then I opened a message on here from that primal guy. now maybe I will start having time to learn how to use these programs and start designing anything I want

I admire the old Curmudgeons that did the old sign painting and gold leaf - lots of knowledge to be gained from them - sometimes my hardest thing I do is shut up and listen to them. Unfortunately there are getting to be too few of them around. We learn from everyone though - over time we have had incredible mirror people that did sandblasting and antiquing of mirrors, an incredible 3d video game artist that I personally banned and then brought back months later - very very talented person just a little OCD on grammar and spelling :), people that are incredible with sand blasting glass (You know who you are) , one member is the guru on 3d wall mounted letters etc . . . incredible wood workers. we also have a great group that hang around and support each other and newbies. some have gone on to have incredibly successful sign businesses and seldom stop by anymore - lots that have followed from forum to forum in the old days when there were many more forums and it was hard to bounce between them to get info (not an all in one place). With the sponsor of this forum selling equipment, supplies and software we will always have a good supply of new people looking to learn and a few frustrated ones that need direction to calm their nerves - and that dedicated group of people that hang around that all have knowledge in different areas complimenting the groups knowledge. We are far stronger as a group than any individual could ever be

OK, I'll admit it. I'm an old fart!!

guess we need someone with a sc to jump in and comment both Primal and myself have servo cutters and it has been so long since I had a stepper that my memory may be bad - servos are way smoother

kinda comparing apples to oranges as I use a graphtec servo cutter -the sc has stepper motors but with enough fiddling you should get under 1/2 "

Found it, Hudson NY thanks for looking

the cutting twice is an indication that there are two of that image stacked on top of each other. the jerking is probably a lot of nodes created with the tracing.

do a search for dx2 print heads - pretty sure that is what that one uses. with no ink coming out you don't know if the heads being clogged is the only problem or did he blow the board they connect to or the mainboard when putting them in - I have seen many many people buy a cheap printer and just power it down by the button and not remove all power and fry the printhead control board or mainboard when replacing heads - then they have the cost of the new heads that are junk in short order from not pulling in thru them daily and the cost of the boards that in the past have been $1200-$2600 each - if still available. at that point that cheap printer didn't seem so cheap

Thanks for not destroying the scalps program by the way lol.. But i will say im beyond a hobbyist now for the past 2 years. I have done many large signs, a few back lit signs,partial wraps and multiple layer designs, Even tho i dont print, i myself feel im no longer a home/hobbyist for the amount of jobs i have done and the money i have made legally with a license etc. Im no professional thats for sure and I might not be doing prints or full vehicle wraps like some of the big timers on here but i am doing very well with a nice stack of businesses i do supply to now and i also design and modify Product Catalogs for a World Wide LED supplier after they had me do some work a few times, . My last large order was sent to Australia. That was a nice payday.. @Wildgoose i would like to let you access my Computer one day when you have free time for a live connection and let you play and or see how the program runs compared to the older older versions and see what you think... As i have told everyone once before the only thing i really dont like and the only thing i have ever bi#$# about was the text on arch feature, Its ok because i design in Ai 98% of the time its no big deal... Everything else is smooth and simple and that is due to you helping like you have. And im not taking what you said in a negative way whats so ever bud lol.. You have helped me more than anyone knows when i first started,And you have never down talked me on anything ive asked or talked about etc... My hat goes off to you friend..

Well some people have used regular inkjet printers to print on Papilio media, colors will fade though outdoors, however you can spray it with a UV laminate spray that might get you a year or two depending on how much sun exposure... http://www.texascraft.com/hps/Waterproof-Glossy-White-Film/ http://www.texascraft.com/hps/Aerosol-LLA5000-UV-Laminate-Spray-12fl.-oz.html

Just FYI MrJoel, I use SignCut Pro 1. There is a new version out now (2) but I have a dongle for 1 so I will stay with it. Pro1 has basically zero design abilities but is a great cutting tool and works on EITHER a mac or a pc which I think may be the only program that will run on either one without having to buy a separate version. If you don't have a dongle and are paying subscription then you have to transfer over and this is only allowed 5 times without asking for permission but with the dongle you can load the program on any number of computers and just plug in the dongle to use the program. I design on a mac and have a widows 7 pc laptop that I actually have over at the cutter station. I often set the cutter to working and then go back to my mac and keep designing other things. If you are looking at the SignCut direction know that you will also have to get into a vector design program as well. Being a mac user I looked long and hard at all the options out there. If I were a PC only guy I might very well switch over to VM Pro due to I like most of the features in that program. Have not used SCALP4 just an early version that was distasteful. Can't speak to the new version 4 but Primal is a fan. It's probably kosher for home/hobbyist use. If you are planning to go professional you will need to be able to produce as well as process high end professional files in the common file formats. Most common and sort of the industry standard is .ai (Adobe Illustrator). You will see a lot of files down-saved to .eps and sometimes to .svg (or even .pdf with the vectors). Having a robust program that can handle all of these may or may not be of importance to the little guy or the hobbyist so you will have to make those decisions. I try to be able to handle all the potential files that I get sent or asked to produce in a professional manner and having to ask to have a file saved to some other format is usually hard to get done from most clients who don't know the first thing. 99% of the time they send over a raster image and that's all they have. The design side of cutting can be a challenge for some.

Listen to Dakota, it will save you a lot of headaches!

Skip, If you are in doubt about the file post it up if it's not something copyright protected and we will take a look and verify that there aren't layers in there stacked or something wrong with it.

VOE right there... 'nuff said. Cal

Thanks, I see it now...it looks like it separates the shadow and the letters, and then I select separate jobs so I can load the proper color.

Sure cuts a lot site has a lot of its own tips as well as it's own forum But your looking for CUT BY COLOR http://www.craftedge.com/tutorials/cutbycolor/cutbycolor.php

I will PM you mine. Don't want the file floating around out there.

sometimes you have to delete your usb driver and re install as well. especially with windows 10 having a lot of glitches with certain programs ,cutters, and software etc..